FOR THE ONE LIFE WE HAVE

RECENT GROUP MEETINGS

In MAY we  had an illustrated talk on The Secular hidden in Religious Art.  Daphne Coward showed slides of Medieval and Renaissance paintings, explaining the development of religious pictures.  Early ones were formulaic, with religious figures in rigid frontal attitudes and heiratic poses. Later, saints were added and Daphne pointed out the importance of the eyes. Looking to the right symbolised goodness and the hope of a better Hereafter. The left was symbolic of darker, impure, earthbound existence.

As time passed, pictures combined Christian with early pagan deities, with Christian iconography equating Jupiter with God, Juno with Mary etc.  By this time, pictures showed the wealth and piety of the donor. To start with, small images of donors would appear in the border of a religious picture. Later, donors were shown inside the main picture, often large and prominent, richly attired and even sometimes participating in the action. Pictures increasingly used quantities of rich reds and blues, pigments which were extremely expensive, hence demonstrating even more the donors’ wealth.

There was also a great deal of gold was used for the same reason and this would have the added advantage that it reflected the light of candles which were the only source of artifical light in churches.

Gradually we see the intrusion of the secular into religious art.  First the donors, then musical instruments, domestic objects, landscape - first idealised and later recognisable - and classical ruins.  The characters were increasingly well dressed, in the very height of fashion. The donor becomes ever more prominent. An Annunciation by Filippino Lippi shows the donor as a fundamental representative of the church, with salvation firmly in his hands.. No wonder Tudor Humanists resented this blatant interference between You and Your God without needing any intermediary.

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